Immersive Social Platform 'VRChat' Raises $10 Million in Venture Capital

VRChat announced today that it has closed a $10 million Series C investment to continue expanding its immersive social platform which is steeped in user-generated content.

VRChat is an immersive social platform that allows VR and non-VR users to socialize in a connected virtual world while exploring user-generated spaces and activities. The platform’s laissez faire attitude to user-generated content and non-prescriptive gameplay makes it unique among competitors like Rec Room and Bigscreen.

The sometimes zany mashup of aesthetics and activities has also made the game popular on the livestreaming scene, with the game ranking in the top 100 Twitch titles by average viewers, according to Twitch tracker SullyGnome.

VRChat Series C Investment

Having raised $5.2 million in venture capital previously, VRChat today announced it has raised an additional $10 million in a Series C investment. VC firm Makers Fund joins the round as a new investor alongside prior investors HTC, Brightstone VC, and GFR Fund.

“Graham, Jesse and Ron [VRChat’s founders] have a bold vision to enable and empower diverse communities through limitless virtual identities and experiences,” says Jay Chi, Founding Partner of Makers Fund. “We see great potential here and are very excited to partner with the VRChat team on this journey”

Still in the startup phase, VRChat is completely free and has not yet moved to monetize the platform.

VRChat’s Viral Moment

VRChat first launched in 2017 and saw slow but steady traction before having a ‘viral moment’, driven by Twitch livestreamers and dank VRChat-inspired memes, which saw the game’s player count on Steam surge more than 25x over the course of one and a half months. Much of that viral surge seems to have translated into lasting traction, with the game consistently seeing 10x the player count compared to before its moment in the spotlight.

Similar stats are not available for other platforms where the game is available (like on Oculus) so the scale of usership elsewhere, and how it was impacted by the viral moment, is not clear. However, VRChat said at the that in 2018 it had seen 4 million unique users, 30% of which were using VR.

The platform most recently launched on Oculus Quest, and is also available on Oculus Rift and Steam (Vive, Index, Rift, and Non-VR).